


Broth and Bread

by epiphanaea (Epiphanaea)



Category: Mary Russell - Laurie R. King
Genre: Dreaming Spies, Episode Tag, F/M, Or whatever is the proper tag for that when it's a series of books, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 10:31:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18092645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphanaea/pseuds/epiphanaea
Summary: An interlude after the end of 'Dreaming Spies,' with reference to a very troubling book - no, not that book.





	Broth and Bread

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically porn about how porn is sometimes disturbing.

All was well, or ought to have been. Haruki was safe, and the the matter of one extremely troublesome book had been neatly solved – with no particular thanks to the partnership of Holmes and Russell, but that I could accept.

It was another book I'd come across in the course of our efforts that, rather inexplicably, still troubled me – that grotesque _Kama Sutra_ in Lady Darley's drawer.

I did not think myself especially naive. Nothing else in the Darley's rather large and varied collection of blackmail materials and . . . implements of an intimate nature . . . had caused me more than a pang of vicarious embarrassment. My own tastes might run decidedly to the traditional, but it was no shock to me that others had more exotic palates.

So why did that dratted book linger in my mind like a particularly nasty pebble in my shoe? Had it been as disturbing as I remembered? What did it matter that it was? Lady Darley was a blackmailer and a murderess; surely that was more obscene than any collection of dirty pictures, no matter how revolting I'd found it.

And yet, it clung to me – those images of deliberate, mocking degradation, something subtler but every bit as foul as any depiction of outright violence.

And perhaps that was why, despite the case having been concluded and Holmes and I having returned to Sussex to enjoy some much-needed peace, we had yet to reacquaint ourselves as husband and wife.

That in itself was not so very odd. We were neither of us creatures of routine, and - even when we happened to be occupying the same house at the same time, which we frequently did not - we were often caught up in our own pursuits. Weeks might pass wherein we were perfectly happy merely to exist within the other's sphere, the greatest physical intimacy needed being a brush of hands, a sharing of warmth beneath the bedclothes, that subtle dance of two people moving around one another with the ease of many years familiarity.

Other times, that bodily need for him felt like the most urgent thing in the world, as necessary as food or water or air.

What I was feeling now was neither, nor the happy middle ground between the two. I wanted, and yet there was a squirming, uncomfortable feeling to it – the memory of those hideous illustrations leering at me.

I had been married nearly four years now, yet I waited until Holmes was in the process of pulling a nightshirt over his head before I could bring myself to say, “Did you see the book – the other book – in Lady Darley's drawer?”

I was already abed – had been for an hour or so already, in fact, reading and waiting for him to finish in the laboratory. I was fresh-scrubbed and nightgowned and not remotely interested in sleep.

It was a complete non sequitor, but Holmes knew my brain well enough to just continue in the process of exchanging trousers for pajama pants. Another night, I might have just suggested that he wouldn't be needing those. “I did not.”

“A copy of the _Kama Sutra_ ,” I said, and was pleased at how neutral my voice had been.

Unfortunately, the result of that was that Holmes turned to me with a brow raised, saying, “Oh?” in subtly amused curiosity. That hint, that very faintest suggestion of teasing, made my stomach sour. The playful look dropped from his face the instant he saw my expression. “What is it?”

“It's nothing,” I said irritably, which only caused his frown to deepen. “I'm being a prude again, I suppose.”

“You are not,” he declared, and sat on the end of the bed rather than joining me in it. “Something about this book troubled you, but it was not its pornographic nature – that might describe quite a few of that woman's possessions, yet you recall this book in particular.”

“It was just . . . foul, Holmes, really foul. Looking at it made me feel like I needed a bath. A scalding bath.”

“You have had several opportunities to bathe,” he observed mildly.

“Yes.”

“Bathing did not prove efficacious in ridding you of this sense of befoulment?”

“No. It – oh, come to bed, will you?” I said. Holmes did, though he watched me closely as he climbed beneath the covers, and kept a wary distance. He did not lay down, but sat propped against the headboard. I scowled, to let him know what I thought of that, and he held out an arm to me. I went, tucking myself into his side.

“Tell me about this book,” he said, when I had settled against him. His fingers trailed through my hair, what there was of it.

How to describe it? “Whoever illustrated that book,” I began slowly, “found sexual congress to be a filthy, nasty business, but he was neither puritanical nor acetic. He liked the thought – was aroused by the idea of human beings stripped of their humanity, willingly debasing themselves.”

Holmes grunted in distaste.

“It wasn't just some illicit fun, it was absolutely intended to engender revulsion, even self-hatred in the reader, alongside lust.”

“Or to allow the reader to revel in her power over such pathetic creatures as are depicted on the pages,” Holmes suggested.

“Or that – if the reader saw him- or herself as . . . something of a conspirator with the illustrator, privy to a hidden, cruel joke, rather than identifying with the people in the images themselves.”

“So the viewer must choose between a subtle mental violence, or an equally insidious sense of violation.”

“Yes, I think that's it.”

“Disturbing,” Holmes agreed, “Though there is always the third option – that of indifference.”

“I'm having a hard time achieving that,” I admitted.

“Hrmm.” He frowned consideringly at me.

“I know it's absurd, to be so upset by mere drawings – it's not as though they were photographs. There is no actual act of violence here, no victim, only a glimpse into a disturbed mind.”

“Not absurd,” Holmes said. “It's eminently rational, given your familiarity with the very real devastation one individual's depravity can wreak.”

To that I said nothing. He was right, of course – yet also wrong.

“Well, this simply won't do,” he pronounced, and turned my head toward him with two gentle fingers on my jaw. It brought our faces very close together; his brows were drawn down in an expression of fierce concentration. I met his gaze evenly.

“Perhaps,” he suggested, in a low, careful voice, “this malady ought to be treated not as if your skin encountered some noxious substance, to be scoured away, but as if you'd eaten spoiled food.”

“You propose broth and plain bread?” I asked doubtfully.

“In a manner of speaking,” he said, unperturbed, and kissed me – slowly and carefully and thoroughly, and it sent a shudder through me. He drew back, assessing my reaction. “Though the first step to recovery from food poisoning is to fast -”

“No,” I interrupted, a bit too quickly for dignity. “I've fasted quite long enough, thank you.”

“Good,” he said, and kissed me again, just at the corner of my mouth; a soft promise of a kiss. His lips sought my pulse, then the hollow below my ear. He kissed my temple, as we slid down into the bedclothes, with a tenderness that made me shiver.

For long minutes we did nothing but kiss, his right arm pillowing my head while his left hand stroked up and down my back, almost soothing. Almost, had that hand not strayed to my tailbone, molded itself to the curve of hip and buttock, before moving up again in a delicious drag of nails over sensitized skin.

My own fingers curled into the muscles of his back, an unconscious echo of his movement, and Holmes hissed in reaction. His kisses stuttered. I shifted, one leg curling over his. I needed to be closer, to be held, to feel the solid heat of his body, but I hesitated to press more intimately against him. It was absurd, I scolded myself, and entirely unlike me, this craving for unspoken assurance – but he gave it, rolling onto his back and drawing me over him, helping me with firm hands to settle my legs to either side of his hips.

My nightgown had ridden up around my waist. He was more substantially clothed, which was an irritation, but at that moment the thought of breaking apart long enough to divest him of his night-shirt and drawers was unbearable. I settled flush against him, relishing the press of my breasts against his chest. My face tucked into the side of his neck, cheek to slightly stubbled jaw, while my hands settled to his shoulders, kneading absently.

His hands went to my hips, those wonderful, long fingers of his finding the soft skin where thigh meets buttock and stroking, pressing, drawing my legs wider. My hips rolled, and he arched up into me, giving me the hard length of him to press against. My fingers curled into the muscles of his shoulders; a whine escaped my throat as his hands encouraged the motion of my hips.

“My dearest Russ,” he murmured, and I felt the hoarse rumble of the words in his throat, against my lips. “Yes, that's right, my dearest girl.”

I pressed my lips to his neck as if I could kiss the sound itself, the words, the generous spirit beneath them. We rocked together, languorous as the lapping of the tide on a still night. How had he known that this was what I'd needed, just exactly this – or nearly exactly.

“Holmes,” I murmured, shifting my hips in unspoken demand, trying to communicate what I needed without breaking the spell. “Can you -”

His hands left my thighs, and I felt fabric tugged from between us. I rose up on my forearms, elbows to either side of his chest, so that I could see his face.

“Don't get up,” I said, hushed but urgent.

“No,” he agreed, leaving his drawers shoved just far enough down his thighs. I settled firmly back over him, the movement of my hips more deliberate now, assuring we were both slick and ready. His fingers curled again around my thighs, finding and parting the soft flesh of my sex.

“Holmes.” I arched back against his fingers, then against the head of his shaft, at my entrance but not at quite the right angle.

“Yes,” he responded, hands urging me to tilt my pelvis just so, his pajama-entrapped legs bending at the knees, planting his feet on the mattress. Our eyes were locked, and his expression was of intense concentration. His hips thrust, almost, almost, and then I found the motion that opened me to him. The sound I made as he entered me was one of pure relief, as if his flesh in mine were air after drowning. I let my head fall forward, our foreheads touching; so close, his face was just a blur.

“Dearest girl.” His voice was an unsteady exhalation; his hands stroked up my buttocks to the small of my back, then down again, guiding me back into a slow rocking motion.

It felt wonderful; a lush, dream-like sensation that I wanted to go on forever. The need for release was a distant thing, an eventual surety that I need not trouble myself with now. I let my head settle back to his shoulder. It changed the angle of my hips, but I let Holmes worry about that, his sure hands arranging my legs such that he stayed easily inside me.

I was aware, in a distant sort of way, that the position I was in lacked any shred of elegance or dignity; that we made up one of those contorted couples, illustrated in Lady Darley's book – but instead of the creeping uneasiness that had been haunting me, anger washed through me in a shudder. How dare that odious person, whoever he was, think he had any right at all to mock what he clearly did not understand.

I sat up, bracing my hands on Holmes' chest, and whatever he saw in my face had him smiling softly. “There's my Russell,” he said. I smiled back, a bit rueful, as some tiny spark of urgency caught within me.

My movements quickened, and in moments that stray ember was a conflagration of need. Holmes hissed in a breath. His hands found my hips in a grip like iron, fingers splayed and palms hot against the tops of my thighs, and both thumbs just _there_ , my body so familiar to him that it took no searching for him to press exactly where I needed.

It undid me, and I fell forward, every muscle of my body curling in around the locus of pleasure; what a curious thing it is, that moment of utter vulnerability and exaltation. And then, after, the flood of weak-limbed peace – and, if it is a moment shared, the upwelling of an almost unbearable tenderness for this fellow human being, this creature of breath and skin and heat, like oneself. The knowledge that you have each seen the other stripped down to this most elemental of impulses, and found one another lovely.

Holmes was so very, very lovely, so unspeakably dear to me, in those next moments of seeking his own completion.

My pulse settled slowly, the thud of Holmes' heart beneath my ear doing the same. A couple minutes later he shifted from beneath me to extricate himself from his drawers, made use of the fabric in a half-hearted attempt to render both himself and me a bit less sticky, and then tossed them over the side of the bed. When he lay down again, turned toward me, he raised a brow at my expression.

“Is something amusing, Russell?”

“Broth and plain bread?” I asked.

“Something simple and nourishing,” he said, in his most dry and academic of voices. “To re-acquaint the body with -”

“Holmes,” I interrupted.

“Yes, Russell?”

“Turn out the light and come here.”

And we slept.

 

 


End file.
